Well, if you moustache such a question....

There is currently an interesting discussion of the beard and society going on at Maltirish, and it has moved me to reflect on my own beard growing experiences. I've grown two beards in my lifetime, neither time for more than a month or two. Anyway, the way I see it, there are two main aspects to the beard - physical and social.

The physical aspect concerns things like grooming and itchiness. A beard can be convenient because it eliminates all that time normally spent shaving. Of course, for those of us with he luxury of only shaving once a week (more out of laziness than a mere lack of facial hair), the time spent trimming a beard isn't really all that much of an improvement. It also becomes necessary because of things like neck itchiness and hairs hanging over the lip from the moustache.

The social aspect of a beard is basically how people see you and react to your beard. Everyone who knew you before the beard will inevitably have questions about why you're doing it and comments on how well (or badly) it's coming in. But people who meet you for the first time are more likely to keep their judgments silent, andmay think you're a hippy, a communist, a Muslim, or a 19th century politician. Of course, once you shave the beard the same people will have a whole new round of questions for you, and perhaps even new-found honesty like finally telling you they never liked your old girlfriend anyway. This is all just something you have to be prepared to deal with.

Obviously, there's more to say on this, but I'm at work right now and can't really offer this subject the attention and depth it deserves. But hopefully the discussion will continue. Also, in the meantime, for those with the luxury of a surplus of facial hair who can choose what style of beard to grow, Wikipedia has a useful and brilliantly-illustrated guide.